[Contains German subtitles. If you don't see them, press the Settings icon (the gear), select Subtitles, and then check German.]

This is a video excerpt from Adi Da's classic talk, "The Bodily Location of Happiness" (German: "Der körperliche Sitz des Glücklichseins"), which He gave on November 28, 1981. This talk was originally published in the book, The Bodily Location Of Happiness. The full talk is available on CD.

The talk communicates several core insights:

1. Everybody is intuitively familiar with happiness. You don't have to be a devotee of Adi Da! This was part of the reason Adi Da chose "happiness" as the focus of this Teaching period: because the subject was so accessible. Everyone knows what it's like to be happy (at least a little). It's just that most people are not aware that Perfect, Eternal Happiness is possible and Realizable. (And it certainly isn't, through ordinary human means.) Adi Da: "All beings are always already Happy. You always know, at this very moment you know exactly, what it would be to look and feel and be and act completely Happy." The esoteric reason everyone is familiar with happiness is because everyone is always, already happy. And the esoteric reason everyone yearns for complete happiness is because complete happiness is realizable — and everyone's heart knows that.

2. Adi Da's "Lesson of Life":"You can't become happy; you can only be (already) happy." People are always seeking for happiness. The "pursuit of happiness" (not happiness itself!) is even enshrined as an "unalienable right" (alongside life and liberty) in the preamble of the United States Declaration of Independence. Its author, Thomas Jefferson, knew better than to think a government could guarantee happiness itself — hence only the guarantee of "the pursuit of happiness". Only a Divine Incarnation can guarantee Happiness Itself.

Adi Da reveals that happiness is the native state of beings. It is already the case. Every attempt to seek for it (mis-identifying the source of happiness as some object or other) in fact serves to dissociate one from it. Adi Da: "You think that you can seek Happiness and find it. Your search for Happiness is itself a confession of un-Happiness. You cannot realize Happiness by persisting in un-Happiness, persisting in the method of un-Happiness. All seeking is an expression of un-Happiness, all seeking is the method of un-Happiness, the practice of un-Happiness. This must be understood. It is not merely true — it must be understood."

Self-understanding allows one to get this point. Based on self-understanding, one can devote oneself to Happiness rather than to seeking for It and settling for the little bit of Infinite Happiness that "bleeds through" the clench of ego into conditions. This ultimately enables the Eternal Realization of Infinite, Perfect Happiness. Adi Da: "Understand your un-Happiness. Then you will be capable of locating Happiness, and, having located Happiness, you will be capable of practicing the Way of Adidam, which is nothing but the devotion of life to Happiness."

3. The Transmission of the Divine Guru is How One Locates Happiness. The subtitle of the book, The Bodily Location Of Happiness, is: "On the Incarnation of the Divine Person and the Transmission of Love-Bliss". In other words, you can't apply "The Lesson of Life" by somehow "locating" happiness directly, by yourself (or in yourself). Happiness is our native state, but that doesn't mean it can be located by an egoic, "do it yourself" process. We locate happiness directly as a Grace-given Gift, through devotion to the Transcendental Spiritual Transmission of Adi Da. Adi Da: "Happiness is presently the case. In this moment you are already Happy. Sitting with Me, locate this Happiness." We locate our "Native State" by recognizing and submitting to our "Native Person" — our Very Self appearing here in bodily (human) form.

4. It is a Process of Whole Bodily Location. "The bodily location of Happiness" is not primarily a reference to some place where Happiness resides in the body (although Adi Da teases His listeners with this idea: "Look for it in your toes, in your fingers, in your shirt, in your head"). It refers to a process ("the bodily location of Happiness" = "the locating of Happiness with the whole body-mind") that involves the surrender and transformation of every aspect of the body-mind, immersed in the Perfectly Happy State of the Divine Guru, through recognition of Him as the Divine in every moment. Then the secondary and supportive practices of the Way of Adidam become means for staying immersed in that Divine State in every moment: "Having located Happiness [having recognized Adi Da as the Divine], you will be capable of practicing the Way of Adidam, which is nothing but the devotion of life to Happiness [Adi Da, recognized as the Divine]. The practices of this Way are not methods for attaining Happiness, but they are the expressions of Happiness. The disciplines of money, food, and sex are not a way to become Happy. Discipline is difficult enough — why should we also burden it with the obligation to make us Happy!"

Gerald Sheinfeld, a devotee of Avatar Adi Da since the early 1970's, tells a wonderful story about how he found his Guru, Adi Da Samraj and his immediate recognition of Adi Da's unique state of Freedom, Happiness, and Liberation. Gerald speaks about how that recognition of Adi Da has the capacity to awaken others to that state of Prior Unity.

On his new downloadable album, At the Feet of the Spiritual Master, devotee Gerald Sheinfeld tells leelas — true stories of his life of over 45 years with Avatar Adi Da Samraj. These stories begin before the first ashram opened in 1972. They provide details of how Avatar Adi Da awakened ordinary people into devotees of Real God. These stories are based on the awakened recognition of the prior Unity of Divine Reality. They are full of lessons of self-understanding and brightening heart-joy in finding the truth about God, the truth about life and death. The truth of prior Happiness which is the true Condition of all, prior to the ego-I act of separation.

Gerald has been a devotee of Adi Da since the beginning of Adi Da's work with devotees. He accompanied Adi Da on His 1973 trip to India, and has participated in countless sacred occasions and events in the company of Adi Da in the intervening years — so he has many stories to tell!

Some of those stories are on this downloadable album. This audio excerpt is track 8, "The Vision Of Love", on Gerald's downloadable album.

Adi Da's entire human lifetime was a unique demonstration of His Eternal Form — the State He calls the "Bright", the Conscious Light that is Reality Itself.

From His birth on November 3, 1939 on Long Island in New York, to His passing from the body on November 27, 2008, on the Island of Naitauba, Fiji, His Life is the story of the Intervention of the "Bright" in human time.

The fruits of Avatar Adi Da's Lifetime are the establishment of a new and unique possibility for the transformation of all beings and the world itself. His Revelation is of the Divine Reality, which is always Shining — like the sun — as the Prior Condition of every one and every thing.

Adi Da has always said that the Way He Teaches is an ego-transcending relationship, rather than an ego-serving technique. The Way is founded on devotional recognition and response to Him. It is a silent, wordless intuition in the heart of one’s being—not a matter of mere belief, ideas, or techniques to seek for fulfillment (whether material or spiritual). To all who respond to Him with devotion and self-discipline, Adi Da Reveals the Very Divine Condition—the Love-Bliss-Light of Consciousness Itself.

This video provides a brief overview of Avatar Adi Da's life and work, and is an invitation to enter into Spiritual relationship to Him for the sake of Divine Realization.

Adi Da: "I Demonstrate Totality to here. I Reveal Reality Itself, Which Is Divine in Its Totality—not fractioned by humankind, not changed or limited by humankind. I Function in an egoless Transcendental Spiritual (and, Thus, Super-normal) Manner. I am not here limited as a gross (physical) phenomenon. When I am Really 'Located', My Transcendental Spiritual Self-Transmission is literal and undeniable. My Transcendental Spiritual Self-Transmission Is the 'Proof' that Reality—and the 'world' altogether—is of an entirely different Nature than people otherwise suppose."

This is a video excerpt from Adi Da's classic talk, "The Bodily Location of Happiness", which He gave on November 28, 1981. This talk was originally published in the book, The Bodily Location Of Happiness. The full talk is available on CD.

The talk communicates several core insights:

1. Everybody is intuitively familiar with happiness. You don't have to be a devotee of Adi Da! This was part of the reason Adi Da chose "happiness" as the focus of this Teaching period: because the subject was so accessible. Everyone knows what it's like to be happy (at least a little). It's just that most people are not aware that Perfect, Eternal Happiness is possible and Realizable. (And it certainly isn't, through ordinary human means.) Adi Da: "All beings are always already Happy. You always know, at this very moment you know exactly, what it would be to look and feel and be and act completely Happy." The esoteric reason everyone is familiar with happiness is because everyone is always, already happy. And the esoteric reason everyone yearns for complete happiness is because complete happiness is realizable — and everyone's heart knows that.

2. Adi Da's "Lesson of Life":"You can't become happy; you can only be (already) happy." People are always seeking for happiness. The "pursuit of happiness" (not happiness itself!) is even enshrined as an "unalienable right" (alongside life and liberty) in the preamble of the United States Declaration of Independence. Its author, Thomas Jefferson, knew better than to think a government could guarantee happiness itself — hence only the guarantee of "pursuing happiness". Only a Divine Incarnation can guarantee Happiness Itself.

Adi Da reveals that happiness is the native state of beings. It is already the case. Every attempt to seek for it (or mis-identify the source of happiness as some object or other) in fact serves to dissociate one from it. Adi Da: "You think that you can seek Happiness and find it. Your search for Happiness is itself a confession of un-Happiness. You cannot realize Happiness by persisting in un-Happiness, persisting in the method of un-Happiness. All seeking is an expression of un-Happiness, all seeking is the method of un-Happiness, the practice of un-Happiness. This must be understood. It is not merely true — it must be understood."

Self-understanding allows one to get this point. Based on self-understanding, one can devote oneself to Happiness rather than to seeking for It and settling for the little bit of Infinite Happiness that "bleeds through" the clench of ego into conditions. This ultimately enables the Eternal Realization of Infinite, Perfect Happiness. Adi Da: "Understand your un-Happiness. Then you will be capable of locating Happiness, and, having located Happiness, you will be capable of practicing the Way of Adidam, which is nothing but the devotion of life to Happiness."

3. The Transmission of the Divine Guru is How One Locates Happiness. The subtitle of the book, The Bodily Location Of Happiness, is: "On the Incarnation of the Divine Person and the Transmission of Love-Bliss". In other words, you can't apply "The Lesson of Life" by somehow "locating" happiness directly, by yourself (or in yourself). Happiness is our native state, but that doesn't mean it can be located by an egoic, "do it yourself" process. We locate happiness directly as a Grace-given Gift, through devotion to the Transcendental Spiritual Transmission of Adi Da. Adi Da: "Happiness is presently the case. In this moment you are already Happy. Sitting with Me, locate this Happiness." We locate our "Native State" by recognizing and submitting to our "Native Person" — our Very Self appearing here in bodily (human) form.

4. It is a Process of Whole Bodily Location. "The bodily location of Happiness" is not primarily a reference to some place where Happiness resides in the body (although Adi Da teases His listeners with this idea: "Look for it in your toes, in your fingers, in your shirt, in your head"). It refers to a process ("the bodily location of Happiness" = "the locating of Happiness with the whole body-mind") that involves the surrender and transformation of every aspect of the body-mind, immersed in the Perfectly Happy State of the Divine Guru, through recognition of Him as the Divine in every moment. Then the secondary and supportive practices of the Way of Adidam become means for staying immersed in that Divine State in every moment: "Having located Happiness [having recognized Adi Da as the Divine], you will be capable of practicing the Way of Adidam, which is nothing but the devotion of life to Happiness [Adi Da, recognized as the Divine]. The practices of this Way are not methods for attaining Happiness, but they are the expressions of Happiness. The disciplines of money, food, and sex are not a way to become Happy. Discipline is difficult enough — why should we also burden it with the obligation to make us Happy!"

In this excerpt from the double CD, The Grace of Turning to Me, Adi Da describes how "turning to Him" — the moment-to-moment turning of the faculties of the body-mind to Him — must be based on the Graceful recognition of Him as the Divine and response to Him based on that recognition.

On this double CD, Adi Da uses every Compassionate Means in His Manner — sometimes Humorous, sometimes Fiery — to Call His devotees, again and again, to be sensitive to the Grace-Given and spontaneous heart-Attraction to Him, and thereby turn to Him, the Divine in human Form — rather than to the endless content of the body-mind, which only reinforces egoic bondage and the illusion of separateness. In this way, Avatar Adi Da Masterfully Reveals the secret of True Liberation in His Avataric Divine Company.

The talks on this double CD were drawn from Avataric Discourses that took place in 2004.

"The Avon Lady" is a classic talk given by Avatar Adi Da in the early years of His Teaching-Work. In this humorous and penetrating discourse, Avatar Adi Da offers basic instruction regarding the nature of seeking and the Awakening Function of the True Guru.

In this audio excerpt entitled “There Is Already No Dilemma”, Avatar Adi Da describes the human egoic drama of separation, suffering, and seeking. All pleasures, distractions, and experiences reinforce that same drama of the apparently separate self. But the True Guru does not support the search, does not promise any fulfillment of that search. That is the uniqueness and the invaluable quality of the True Guru. Adi Da compares the True Guru to an unusual elevator – where one steps in, expecting to go up (toward Spiritual attainment or some other fulfillment), but instead the bottom drops out. This is why the search begins to fall apart once there is recognition of the True Guru. Then the real Spiritual process can begin.

This excerpt is part of the longer DVD, The Divine Is Not The Cause. Subtitles in English, Spanish, French, German, Dutch, Finnish, Polish, Czech, Chinese, Japanese, and Hebrew. A CD version is also available.

For more about the significance of recognition in becoming Adi Da's devotee, click here.

The soundtrack is "Devotion Increases The Recognition Of Me", an original composition from a devotee. From the composer: "This is a song I wrote and recorded for my Beloved Heart-Master, Adi Da Samraj. The words are from a discourse by Bhagavan, published in The Nine Great Laws of Radical Devotion To Me."

In the first excerpt (from the talk, What Is Your Intention?), Adi Da speaks of the indispensable need for a true and fully accomplished Spiritual Realizer if anyone hopes to discover the ultimate nature of Reality and Truth.

In the second excerpt (at 8:40), Adi Da explains the true way of recognizing Him, the Spiritual Master, and how it is that felt recognition that ultimately becomes the Way of Perfect Liberation.

Adi Da's senior editorial assistant, Jonathan Condit, tells the story of the moment when Adi Da "captured his heart", while he was an ordained Buddhist monk. At the time, Jonathan had an immediate recognition of Adi Da as "Maitreya Buddha". He describes how his recognition deepened over time: "All the premonitions of a 'great being to come' [Maitreya] are unbelievably pale in comparison to the actuality of Avatar Adi Da."

[Note: Jonathan refers to 23 key books written by Adi Da. Since the time of this recording, Adi Da expanded His Vision for His primary literature to 23 "courses", each of which can be associated with many particular Texts.]

Thanks to the many videographers who took the footage, to the many editors who
created these videos and audios, and to the 120
people and organizations who posted these videos and audios on YouTube and other places on the
Web. Special thanks to Lynne
Thompson, who did the bulk of the data entry for our audio/video database.